Performance

Flexing that muscle - Performance Matters

Powering up the player and reaching the home screen took a less than impressive 25 seconds. Once we got the player set up, it was time to test its mettle. Playing videos on YouTube, we noticed no issues though by default the player will display the video in its original resolution. The player only offers the option to watch the video in its native resolution or in full screen mode, which was disappointing to us considering we may want to view the video in a larger scale but not full screen where it just looks like a mass of pixels.

Next up would be the video playback testing, which is the litmus test for media players. Most video formats played back with no problems, and there were no shakes or frame freezes when playing high-definition videos. Obviously the quality of the source video plays a part in how good the video looks as well. There was no option to restart the video we were viewing; when we stopped the video and played it again, it would continue at the previous point where we had stopped. There are not much options offered for playback of video, music and pictures. The submenus are very basic; for videos you only get options to display the subtitles or turn them off, and an option to choose which audio stream you want to be playing in the video. One point to note was that every time we accessed the menu while watching video, the player will automatically pause the video playback. Music playback options are also not rocket science; you get to repeat the song, play through the entire list, or shuffle and loop the tracks. One odd issue we noticed was that we needed to point the remote directly at the infrared port of the unit; if you go pointing somewhere else or even slightly away from the port, the player does not respond. Not a deal-breaker, but a minor annoyance.